


Five.

by beetle



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bull's Chargers, Childhood Memories, Childhood Sweethearts, Declarations Of Love, Elven Alienages, Ensemble Cast, Eve of battle, F/F, F/M, Family, Father-Daughter Relationship, First Love, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Murder, Implied/Referenced Torture, Light Smut, Loss, Love Confessions, M/M, Meet-Cute, Mentions of Origins Characters, Minor Character Death, Not Nearly as Depressing as the Tags Make Out, Nugs, Romance, Skyhold, Trespasser DLC Compliant, Val Royeaux
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 07:36:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11180067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: Five random close-ups of Skinner’s life before, during, and after the events of Dragon Age: Inquisition.





	Five.

**Author's Note:**

> Notes/Warnings: Set during the Dragon Age series timeline. DA: I Trespasser DLC-compliant. Attendant spoilers. Non-graphic mentions of torture and murder.

 

**1**

Skinner’s clearest early memory—back when she had been called something quite different—is of her father’s cold rage on a hot summer night.

 

She’s only three years old, quiet and well-behaved. She is normally asleep at this time of evening, having drifted off on her mother’s sad, sweet lullabies. But this night is different. _More_ different, even, than the nights since winter’s end, when Maman and little Pero—the brother Skinner never _did_ get to see after his stillbirth, and their mother’s death—had gone to the Maker.

 

This night . . . this is a _bad_ night.

 

There are rather more of those in the Val Royeaux alienage than any of its residents might like—this, Skinner knows even at three. Not that she has much of a concept of the world beyond the alienage. Other than it’s bright, colorful, shiny, and full of mercurial _Shemlens_ , who’d just as soon spit on even a child of elven blood, as they’d simply walk by them.

 

On this bad night, the Shemlens— _Shems_ , as her father calls them with bitten-off rue—have come to _them_. A group of a dozen—perhaps more. Certainly, more than Skinner can, at three, count. They’re laughing and loud, mean and dangerous. Some of them are pissing on the _Vhenadahl_ , as if trying to put out a fire. Which may not be entirely unlikely, as one of them is trying to set the People’s Tree on fire with a small, guttering torch.

 

The tenements around them are alive with angry, bitter eyes. Soon, those eyes are pouring out of the dilapidated buildings and surrounding the Shems, who continue with their revelry, entitled and unafraid. For the first time in her life, Skinner feels . . . hate.

 

“What’s gonna happen to the Shems, Papa?” she pipes up as elves fearfully, but with determination, sidle closer to the Shems, who are just taking notice of them and drawing their weapons. Knives and swords and such.

 

“Hush, my sweet one,” her father says quietly, kissing the bridge of her nose, then the tip as he turns back inside and shuts the door. “It’s time for all bright, little stars to go to sleep.”

 

Shems forgotten for the moment, Skinner giggles, wriggling her nose and hanging onto her Papa as he carries her to her little pallet by the fireplace and lays her down. His grey-brown eyes are, as always, kind and tired and sad. But loving.

 

“I’m gonna dream of Maman and Pero!” Skinner decides brightly, smiling a gap-toothed smile up at Papa, who smiles right back.

 

“You do that, little Star,” he murmurs tenderly. “And tell them Papa says hello and he loves them.”

 

“I will, Papa!” Skinner sighs happily as Papa drops one last kiss on her forehead.

 

Skinner is soon tucked in and drowsing, her forehead still tingling with her Papa’s good-night kiss. As she lingers in the borderlands between sleep and wakefulness, she hears the sounds of distant shouts and fighting. Screams and barked commands, eventually.

 

Then, even more ominous than the noise . . . silence.

 

But for the sound of her Papa, pushing all their heavy things—not many—in front of their rickety door.

 

Skinner dreams, for some reason, not of Maman and poor little Pero, but of dragons and mages, daggers and blood. Of a tall black City, visible only in her periphery, yet it’s the only stable point in an ever-changing vista.

 

 _The Throne is empty_ , a soft, sad voice seems to whisper to her as dragons scream overhead and, all around her, elves and Shems with swords and staffs clash not with _each other,_ but against a _real_ danger. Something more than a demon, but less than human or elven. _The Throne is empty and their prayers drop like stones into the silence. . . ._

 

When Skinner wakes up later, with the dawn, the heavy things are still in front of the door, and her father is sitting in a chair before the pathetic pile with a cooking knife in his hand, dozing fitfully.

 

Outside sounds like chaos. Like fighting and fires, looting and destruction.

 

Skinner is distantly frightened, but . . . eventually she falls asleep, once more. The next time she wakes, it’s dark once again. The heavy things have been moved from in front of the door and her Papa, sitting next to her pallet, looking lost and sad, is holding Maman’s favorite shawl. He doesn’t notice Skinner's hugs and attempts at comfort for some time, but when he does . . . he calls her his _Star_ , and hugs her back tight.

 

And, just like that, Skinner’s lived through her first alienage riot.

 

But not her last.

 

**2**

 

“You know, this mooning over her and repining from a distance won’t make her any more likely to notice you. You realize this, yes?” Dalish added in her prim, but laconic way.

 

Krem, staring across the tavern morosely at the solemn-faced trio in a corner far from the door, merely sighed heavily and, with a final, longing look at the Inquisitor, turned back to his companions at the bar. He opened his mouth to speak—hiccupped—then sighed again, even more heavily.

 

Dalish’s crystalline-blue eyes met Skinner’s over their lieutenant’s bowed head, and the mage— _archer_ —rolled them in amused exasperation. Skinner cracked the slight grimace that passed for a smile on her square face, shrugged with elegant indifference, and continued sharpening her favorite dagger, Amelia.

 

“You guys,” Krem moaned, also heavily, clutching listlessly at his flagon of watery Orlesian ale. “You don’ _unnerstan_. . . !”

 

“Then why don’t you _explain_ it to us, lovey?” Dalish cooed with almost maternal indulgence. Even Grim had to snort at that, and exchanged looks with Rocky and Stitches, the former of whom laughed, while the other just wore his usual poker face. “Tell us what’s stopping you from simply . . . inviting the Inquisitor for a . . . private drink?”

 

“Well . . . she’s kina . . . busy with the Chief and Pavus. . . .”

 

“No, I mean—” Dalish briefly pinched the bridge of her nose before going on with slightly forced brightness. “Why don’t you pick a more . . . convenient time, when the Inquisitor is alone, and just . . . take the plunge?”

 

Krem glanced back over his shoulder again, then turned his boyish, normally pleasant face, back to his friends. The expression on his loopy-drunk face _now_ suggested that he thought they’d all gone insane. His next words confirmed it.

 

“Are you all mad? No, don’ answer that. Lemme live in the ‘lusion that the people I trust with my life don’ belong in an asylum,” Krem decided, scowling into his ale. Then, grumbling, he went on, “Why don’ pebbles ask mountains to dance? Why don’ wrens ask eagles to dinner?”

 

“Because those things cannot speak, Shem,” Skinner answered simply, and Rocky snorted into his ale. Grim and Stitches smirked, and Dalish rolled her eyes again.

 

“ _No_! Well, _yes_! But, _no_!” Krem moaned again. “I’m . . . I’m just a mercenary and she’s . . . she’s the _Inquisitor_! And the Herald of Andraste! She’s . . . a mighty peak and I’m . . . just a bit of gravel someone’s kicked into the road! She’s beautiful and _regal_ and strong and just . . . ah, damn!”

 

“She _is_ a very . . . statuesque woman,” Rocky agreed with ponderous admiration, taking a look across the tavern at the Inquisitor, himself. The tall, Tal-vashoth Qunari was laughing at something Dorian Pavus had said, while the Chief was gazing at Dorian with a fondness that even Ben-Hassrath conditioning and training couldn’t quite hide.

 

“I’m . . . not a heathen, or anything, mind, but . . . she’s a bloody _goddess_ ,” Krem breathed with weary sadness, taking a long swallow of his ale. One of many that he’d probably be regretting in the morning. “Those gorgeous green eyes, the raven’s-shadow hair . . . the horns . . . bloody _hell_ , but those _horns_. . . .” he groaned in misery and ecstasy as he gazed into the depths of his future hangover. “Don’t get me started on her _smile_. That dimple in her left cheek and that twinkle in her eyes she sometimes gets when she’s being a snarky little shit with Sera. . . .”

 

“Or her hips. Woman’s got good, child-bearing hips,” Rocky noted when Krem sighed again, then flinched when the lieutenant shot him a narrow-eyed glare.

 

Stitches grinned crookedly. “I’m partial to those long legs of hers. Wouldn’t mind those thighs wrapped ‘round my waist. Or my hea—ahem.” He coughed and cleared his throat when Krem’s bleary, basilisk-glare swung to him. Then around at all of them.

 

“Anyone _else_ have any opinions about the Inquisitor’s thighs they feel like sharing with me?”

 

Grim grunted, and opened his mouth, as if about to speak. Surprised, even Skinner stopped her sharpening in curious anticipation. But before he could say anything, Dalish, whose back was to him, chimed in with: “She’s got amazing tits!”

 

Everyone’s mouth dropped open, except for Skinner’s. She merely smirked a little and resumed her sharpening. Amelia could, if necessary, be counted upon to skin a dragon mid-way between molts. Skinner’s aim was to _keep_ her best gal that battle-ready at all times.

 

“DALISH!” Krem exclaimed, scandalized. Even Grim looked startled and uncertain. But Dalish merely shrugged negligently, glancing at Skinner as if in challenge.

 

“Well, she _does_! Skinner _agrees_ with me, don’t you, Skin-lovey?”

 

“Eh.” Skinner’s brow furrowed momentarily as all eyes landed on her. “Yours are better, I think,” she said into the even more shocked and loaded silence. Then hummed a bit. “But she has a _fantastic_ ass.”

 

All the men exchanged helpless glances, while Dalish’s considering gaze never left Skinner, who—as usual—kept her affect stoic and bland.

 

“Wait—you think _my_ tits are better than the _Inquisitor’s_?” she asked incredulously, making the universal, cupped-hands at chest-level signal reserved for the amply-endowed. Skinner’s smile as she met Dalish’s gaze was as sharp and shining and dangerous as Amelia.

 

“As Bull says, more than a handful is wasted.”

 

Dalish snorted and the boys all turned from Skinner to her. “But have you _seen_ the size of our captain’s _hands_?!”

 

In the silence that followed that exclamation, everyone met everyone else’s gazes.

 

Then, they all dissolved into laughter, even Grim—whose low _heh-heh-heh_ was barely audible—and Skinner, whose brief _ha-ha-heh_ was smothered by her hand. Her face was rather pink under Dalish’s continued and assessing stare.

 

Across the tavern, the Chief, the Inquisitor, and Dorian Pavus all glanced their way curiously, but with amused fondness.

 

**3**

 

She names him _Trembles_ , and it’s a fitting name.

 

Skinner’s older, when she finds him, but still a little. She’s been living in various alienage squats that other littles, elven orphans, also frequent, in the years since she’s been on her own.

 

She’s content if she gets one meal a day. Two is occasionally possible. Three is a pipe-dream she has of another, older life. A life with the tall, kind man with the soft, kind voice . . . whose grey-brown eyes match his grey-brown hair. And—even more distantly—a dream of the small, kind woman with a bright, mischievous grin, long auburn hair, and wide, sky-blue eyes. . . .

 

In _this_ life, Skinner barely gets enough food to keep body and soul together, but unlike most children, this doesn’t bother her much. She rarely has much in the way of an appetite. The food she has familiarity with is bland and mostly tasteless. Her body uses it for fuel, but does not crave it unduly.

 

She’s not certain how old she is, though she suspects that she’s small for her age, whatever it is. She spends her days surviving and doesn’t waste much time on self-reflection. She’s tough and fast and _mean_. That’s what matters.

 

She does, however, know it’s been five summers that she’s been on her own. It’s near the end of that fifth summer when she finds the squirmy, skinny, sickly little thing in the gutter early one morning, not far from the main gate of the alienage.

 

It’s littler than the occasional cat one sees among the elderly elves of the alienage, pink and hairless, to boot. Its eyes are closed and its breathing is fast and shallow . . . _labored_ , despite the temperate day.

 

No one else seems to notice the odd little thing—perhaps it’s a pig? Skinner’s heard of pigs, and that some of them are pink and squashy-looking—though that could be because the sun’s barely risen, and most of the people near the gate have the tired, unobservant look of working-destitute. They’re waiting for what might be their first and only meal of their long, miserable day to become available: breakfast, through the charity of the Chantry.

 

None of them notice when the small, skin-and-bones girl steps out of the waiting crowd and makes her way to the cracked and crumbling curb of the first side street off the main road.

 

Nor do they notice when that girl, her thin, but over-large, dirty blue shirt moving sluggishly in fits and starts, scurries back the way she’d come.

 

#

 

It takes several weeks of feeding him most of her meals and giving him most of her water, as well as letting him sleep curled up against her skin, all squirmy, shivery, and stinky, but eventually Trembles—though never ceasing to live up to his name—starts acting more like a pet and less like a dying-thing.

 

He’s more motile, now, and tougher to hide in the squats while she goes out begging or stealing. Several times, she returns to her temporary homes to find that Trembles has almost escaped the increasingly byzantine pens she’s taught herself to construct. So, she cuts back on her stealing and focuses more on her begging and even scavenging. Trembles comes with her, always down her big shirts, which she wears fastened securely to her too-small trousers.

 

He’s an affectionate little thing—piglet, or _whatever_ he is—bright as anything and curious, too. He makes Skinner laugh, something she’s seen people do, on occasion, especially the closer they are to her age, but it’s not something life has inclined _her_ to be good at. But Trembles is something of a comedian. He knows the quick, seldom-trod paths to his mistress’s heart and is ruthless in following them to their end.

 

It isn’t long before other children, mostly littles, start to notice Trembles. They all think he’s adorable, and want to feed and pet him. To look after and protect him. Skinner isn’t one for sharing, but she’s also a dyed-in-the-wool pragmatist. She warily allows other littles—and _only_ littles . . . they’re mostly too stupid to be devious or untrustworthy—access to Trembles, her dead-flat gaze promising awful things to the person who harms her pet.

 

But none of the littles ever do. They guard him with their worthless, tiny lives, just like Skinner does with hers.

 

It’s because of the loyalty Trembles inspires, that Skinner makes her first-ever, not-piglet-or-whatever friend.

 

“My name’s Lelessa,” the girl says shyly, after she’s hung around the current squat Skinner is sharing with a few other kids, for a few days. Today, she's been watching the littlest littles of Skinner’s small army of regular-guardians pet and coo over a preening Trembles.

 

Skinner turns her mild, measuring, and ultimately disinterested gaze on this new girl—she’s even smaller than Skinner, with wavy, mink-brown hair and eyes the color of the highest leaves on the _Vhenadahl_ : green and gold, as if lit by some inner-sun. “What’s yours?”

 

Skinner shrugs indifferently. She neither knows nor cares.

 

The girl— _Lelessa_ —frowns, blinking her big, pretty, inner-sun eyes. “Do you not have one, or do you not know it?”

 

Skinner shrugs again, growing slightly irritated with girl and conversation, ready to move the little nuisance along. Bodily, if necessary.

 

But then Lelessa’s pretty eyes dart once more to Trembles, where he’s squealing and playing with the three littles—not siblings, but enough alike with their pale hair and paler eyes, that they _could_ be—and back to Skinner.

 

“Well, what’s _her_ name, then? Your nug?” At this, Skinner frowns, confused. But the girl, whatever else she is, is _quick_ , and smiles a bit. “That’s what she is: a nug. One doesn’t usually see them in urban settings like this.”

 

“You talk funny,” Skinner declares in a voice as scratchy and underused as a Magister’s heart. The girl’s eyes widen and she giggles. Like everything else about her, it’s _pretty_. And it makes Skinner feel grubby and pathetic. . . .

 

At least until the amusement in those inner-sun eyes is warmed by curiosity and kindness.

 

“Not as funny as _you_ , _Orlesienne_ ,” the girl teases, but not meanly. Skinner’s not used to not-mean teasing, and glowers ferociously, anyway.

 

“ _Why_ do you talk funny?” she demands, crossing her arms. The girl grins. Her teeth are crooked, but very white and . . . grinning, she’s even _prettier_ than she was before. She tosses her brown ringlets over her shoulders. It’s then that Skinner notices Lelessa’s _ears_. . . .

 

“My mother was from Antiva,” the girl is saying proudly, as if that _means_ something. Skinner has no idea what or where Antiva is and firmly decides she doesn’t care. But she can’t stop sneaking glances at the girl’s ears until Trembles squeaks happily, loudly, and snaps her out of her daze.

 

“Do you wanna look after _him_ , sometimes? With the other littles?” she asks, getting straight to the point. “I can’t take him stealing with me. He’s too noisy.”

 

Lelessa— _the girl_ —all but sparkles. She’s _radiant_ , even though Skinner doesn’t yet know that word. “Yes! I’d _love_ to look after him sometimes! Very much so!” she exclaims, bouncing up on her toes. Even her feet, in their worn, tattered shoes, are small and dainty, like the rest of her. Petite, unlike Skinner, who’s just underfed and _scrawny_.

 

Scowling, Skinner huffs and turns away from the radiant girl. From _Lelessa of Antiva_ and her flat, flat ears.

 

At least she seems smarter and—somehow— _tougher_ than the trio of littles cosseting Trembles right now. And smart is _good_. Shem or not—and it must be _not_ , right? If she’s in an alienage? Maybe she’s just got stupid, boring Shem-ears because she was _born_ _wrong_?—she’s in the shit with the rest of the elves of Val Royeaux.

 

“Fine. His name is Trembles. Don’t feed him sausage. It’d be can-ee-ball-ism,” Skinner warns, and the girl’s eyes go blank for a few moments before clearing. She giggles.

 

“Silly! He’s a _nug_ , not a pig! You _don’t_ put _nug_ in sausage!”

 

“Who knows what-all goes in sausage, besides snouts, hooves, and assholes?” Skinner bends her scariest glower on the girl, who sniffs. “ _Don’t_ feed him sausage.”

 

The girl rolls her eyes. Her stupid, flat ears are pink like the rest of her lightly-tanned face. “If you say so.”

 

“I do.” Skinner’s eyes narrow, and she sniffs, too, and refuses to talk to the girl again for the rest of the day. Even though Lelessa stays until the sun is westering, the trio is long-gone, and Trembles—the not-piglet-or-whatever-maybe-nug, who is _not_ allowed sausage—has fallen asleep in her arms with little, snuffling snorts.

 

Skinner stares at her the whole time she’s there. Just trying to catch another glimpse of those flat Shem-ears.

 

Or so she tells herself every time Lelessa’s— _the_ _girl’s_ —huge, green, inner-sun gaze lights on her, curious and unafraid.

 

**4**

 

“I can’t figure you out,” Dalish huffed sleepily, from the depths of the sagging bed.

 

They’d got the room for the whole night—and they were lucky to get it at all, on the eve of the deciding battle against Corypheus. The inn had been almost full-up when Dalish had booked it, then dragged her lover up the stairs in the innkeeper’s brisk, but amused wake.

 

The stout human woman had barely pulled the door closed behind her when Dalish’s arms had wound around Skinner’s waist from behind. Her breath had been hot, but gentle as she'd leaned down to whisper in Skinner’s left ear.

 

“I love you.”

 

Skinner had frowned, even as she'd allowed herself to lean back slightly into that protective, possessive embrace.

 

“And when this’s over,” Dalish had gone on, uncertainly, pausing when Skinner had turned to look up into her eyes. The Dalish elves tended to be a tall, gangling lot, and this _particular_ _Dalish_ was no different. Though, on _her_ , the terms _willowy_ and _lithe_ , seemed more applicable. Like the myths of _Elvhen_ princesses, all platinum hair with hints of a curl, framing a lovely face and crystalline eyes.

 

Right then, those eyes had seemed almost gray with hesitance and worry.

 

“When this’s over, Skinner-darling,” Dalish had begun again, taking a deep breath. Skinner had grimaced her usual tiny, smirk-like smile, though her gaze had been somewhat gentler and warmer than any of the other Chargers had ever seen it.

 

“When this’s all over, we’ll probably be dead. Or a darkspawn-dinner,” she had finished for the other woman, shrugging, but with her mood inexplicably soured, for some reason.

 

Dalish had searched her face and sighed. “But _if_ , by some benign magic or divine intervention, we’re neither, but alive and able to hobble around . . . I want you to know that . . . I’ll be hobbling off looking for _you_ , once the dust settles. And I’ll find you and follow you. Wherever you are. Wherever you go.”

 

Skinner had frowned deeper, her mouth dropping open a little. Her insides had churned—not her stomach, per se . . .that was cast-iron. She hadn’t thrown-up once in her remembered life—like a burning in her chest. This burning had hurt and _hurt_ . . . but it had also been golden and glowing. It'd made her want to sob and shake and . . . smile.

 

She'd done none of those things, however. Merely hummed for a moment, before replying.

 

“You Dalish will do _anything_ to travel, eh?” she’d teased with her customary lack of affect. Dalish’s right brow had quirked up in amusement; in their time together, she’d learned to read Skinner’s various categories of impassive expression effortlessly.

 

“Oh, you know _us_ , lovey. Can’t be arsed to stay in one place for _too_ long. Being a mercenary ma—er, _archer_ suits me.” Sniffing, but with a twinkle in her lively eyes, Dalish had chuckled. “As long as it suits _you_ , too, that is. Places don’t get under my skin. But people . . . people sometimes do.”

 

A full smirk crooking the left corner of her mouth, Skinner had stood on her toes, which’d put her at nose-to-chin with Dalish, and held that shining gaze.

 

“If this all goes to Hell, which it probably will . . . I’ll look for you beyond the Black City,” she’d sworn intently, in a voice that was thick and strange.

 

Both Dalish’s brows had lifted, then. “You Andrastians and your Black City. There’s no escaping that creepy, awful, bloody place in the Fade. Follows one around like an undead hound, it does,” she'd complained. “There’s too much _belief_ gone into it to overlay it with anything else!”

 

Skinner’s smirk had turned into a sad, bland smile. “I wouldn’t know. I’m not Andrastian. Even if she ever _truly_ existed . . . her faith was mislaid. Misled. The Throne is empty, Dalish. It always has been and always will be. All our prayers drop like stones into the silence.”

 

Dalish’s eyes had widened in something like shock, something like horror. “Skinner, love, what—”

 

But Skinner had kissed the questions from Dalish’s pretty, pouty, prim, pink lips. It wasn’t long before Dalish had begun tugging her toward the saggy, but clean bed, her staff— _bow_ —clattering to the floor, forgotten. It had shortly been joined by both their clothes, and most of Skinner’s daggers.

 

 _Most_ of them. None of which had been Amelia.

 

Now, as Skinner sat at the foot of their bed, staring out the window into false-dawn, she smiled. Smiled even more when Dalish sat up and ran a hand down her narrow back and knobby spine.

 

“Did I wake you?” Skinner asked, stepping over Dalish’s not-quite-question. The other woman snorted.

 

“What? With your silent, enigmatic brooding?” A soft scoff. “Oh, but don’t be silly, darling. I don’t sleep very much, lately. Or very well.”

 

Skinner grunted absently, staring at the washed-out stars in the pre-morning haze above Skyhold and environs. Sometimes, when she looked up into the sky—which she rarely did, as most threats, dragons aside, were on the _ground_ —Skinner could remember the kind woman’s smile and touch, and the kind man’s loving, tired eyes and warm voice as he told her stories not about elves, but about the _Elvhen_. . . .

 

Mouth pursing, she let her eyes drop to more terrestrial sights. Three Shem drunkards were staggering down the bit of street she could see, singing a bawdy song about the Hero of Ferelden and King Alistair of Ferelden.

 

There was no mention of Alistair’s _wife_ , Queen Anora in this . . . rather eye-opening ditty. . . .

 

Snorting, Skinner shifted, turning to face Dalish and folding her scrawny, short legs tailor-style across from her relaxed lover. She draped her wiry arms over her knees and leaned forward, smirking and ogling the good bits.

 

Which, as far as Skinner was concerned, was _all_ the bits she could lay her appreciative eyes on.

 

Dalish grinned archly, reaching out to brush Skinner’s fine, chin-length brown hair away from her face, tender fingertips lingering to stroke Skinner’s high, flat-planed cheek.

 

“Your eyes,” she murmured wonderingly. Skinner chuckled.

 

“What about them?”

 

“They’re. . . .” Dalish flushed. “They’re the color I always imagine the bark of the Great Sylvan Trees of antiquity to be: a shimmery sort of silvery-brown.”

 

Skinner’s brows lifted. “I thought we were past the gratuitous flattery-stage, by now.”

 

“Never! And it’s not gratuitous if it’s _true_ , darling,” Dalish tutted, leaning in to steal a kiss. As always, Skinner hijacked it almost immediately, her response going from languid to intense, yearning, and thorough, in the space of a breath—which neither of them could be bothered to take for some time.

 

The next time they did, however, Dalish had long-since resumed control of the kiss and pinned Skinner to the too-soft bed, straddling her narrow hips. She sat up, panting and breathless, to stare down into Skinner’s eyes, her own shining and hopeful.

 

“Will you tell me something, love?” she asked meekly. Skinner, similarly breathless, with one hand cupping Dalish’s left breast and the other Dalish’s right ass-cheek, had grinned: an almost unheard-of occurrence.

 

“You want me to talk to you _now_?” This question was accompanied by nipple-teasing and ass-squeezing that made Dalish moan rather desperately, and lose the plot for a bit.

 

“ _Yes_ , now. No time like the present. And this _might_ be all the time we’ll get, anyway!” Dalish’s voice was suspiciously bright, like her lovely eyes. “I . . . would you tell me your name?” When Skinner looked puzzled, Dalish laughed nervously. “I mean, I know we call you _Skinner_ , but . . . what was your name _before_ that? What did your parents name you?”

 

Frowning, Skinner’s gaze drifted to the window, again, where dawn wasn’t so false, anymore, her hand dropping away from Dalish’s soft, full breast.

 

No one had asked since Lelessa. And even she’d eventually come up with her own name for Skinner, when her friend repeatedly demurred and balked at telling the pathetic truth.

 

Skinner had been happy enough to wear the name Lelessa had given her, for as long as Lelessa had been there to call her by it.

 

“I think,” she finally said, slow and embarrassed, “well, I don’t remember for _certain_. I remember the kind man used to call me his _star_. And he kissed me here—” Skinner touched the tip of her nose “—and here—” the bridge “—and _here_ —” the spot between her eyebrows “every night before I fell asleep. I was . . . very small.”

 

Dalish stared for so long that Skinner felt slightly discomfited, and shrugged jerkily.

 

“How’d you get the name _Skinner_ , then?” the mage— _archer_ —asked gently, still staring down at Skinner with those keen eyes.

 

Biting her upper lip with small, sharpish teeth, Skinner sighed. “When I lived in the alienage . . . this was, maybe, fifteen years ago—when I was not grown, yet not a little anymore, a . . . friend of mine disappeared from our squat. All her things were left behind, even her _favorite_ trinkets. Even _Trembles_. . . .” Skinner’s brow furrowed. “It didn’t take a lot of digging and . . . questioning . . . to find out that some Shems had come looking for her and found her. Left the alienage with her.

 

“I . . . did some things to some people to get answers and leads. Took pieces off them every time they didn’t give me an answer I could use.”

 

Dalish nodded as if this didn’t surprise or disgust her. And when Skinner ventured another glance at the Dalish woman, it was to see concern and compassion etched on her porcelain-pale face.

 

“Did . . . did you find your friend? Was she . . . alright?”

 

Skinner smirked. “Depends on your definition, yes?” Snorting, she blinked away her briefly trebled vision. “Lelessa’s mother was an elf, but her father . . . was some Antivan Shem. A nobleman. A _married_ one, whose wife never produced an heir. Lelessa’s mother had been his secretary and mistress for years, but eventually had to leave the nobleman’s employ after his wife grew jealous. She went as far as her money could take her and Lelessa. Which turned out to be Val Royeaux. Lelessa’s mother died of the Fainting Fever not long after they were placed in the alienage. Lelessa was left on her own. She and I met just after that summer ended. And she was my friend for the next seven summers. We . . . we used to talk about getting married, someday, and going to Antiva . . . she always wanted to go back. . . .

 

“That seventh summer, she got her wish. Her Shem father found her and claimed her—made her his heir and, eventually, I presume, took her back with him to Antiva.” Another shrug, indifferent and stiff. “I never saw her again.”

 

Dalish looked heartbroken. “But . . . then, how do you know. . . ?”

 

“Carved it out of the hides of her father’s retainers, didn’t I?” Skinner said grimly, remembering with neither horror, fascination, nor satisfaction, the screams and begging that had accompanied the answers she’d sought. One simply did what one had to, in her experience, then lived as best as one could in the aftermath.

 

“Bloody bastards!” Dalish exclaimed with surprising vehemence, frowning and all but radiating that scary intensity _archers_ sometimes had when their emotions were roused. “You _loved_ her and they _took_ her from you! That’s—that’s—”

 

“You misunderstand,” Skinner interrupted quietly. “She wasn’t taken . . . she went willingly.”

 

Dalish gaped, her mouth working in silent, unhappy incredulity.

 

“The retainers didn’t have to tell me. I didn’t even _ask_. I _knew_. Even before I started looking for her, I knew that wherever she was . . . she’d gone willingly. She _loathed_ the alienage— _of course_ , she did. Every day there was _torture_ for her. An agony that Trembles and I couldn’t mitigate.” Skinner’s mouth twisted in a rueful, but sad moue. “This was her first and perhaps only chance to get out of a place she considered Hell. And she took it. _Ran_ to it with relief. I couldn’t begrudge her taking the opportunity to be . . . happy again. I just had to know . . . that she was alright.”

 

Dalish’s eyes snapped and flashed, as if she could _very much_ do some begrudging _for_ Skinner. But in the end, she sighed and laid down in Skinner’s arms, making herself cuddly and pliant. Skinner, for her part, held the Dalish archer close and tight.

 

“What did you do once you had your answers?” Dalish’s voice sounded foggy and strange. Skinner kissed the crown of the other woman’s head. Her hair always smelled like herbs and growing things.

 

“I went back to the alienage and collected Trembles, and whatever small things I could easily carry, and I left Val Royeaux. The rumors about what I’d done to the nobleman’s retainers were already spreading.” Skinner smirked wonderingly. “The last I heard about it, I’d carved up no less than _ten_ Shem noblemen and esquires who’d been assaulting residents of the alienage. Skinned them alive and left the carcasses scattered around Val Royeaux. The skins, of course, were never found.”

 

Dalish barked a sad, but slightly amused laugh. “Oh, Skin, _lovey_ . . . my _darling_. . . you’re a bloody urban legend! A real-life legend!”

 

“Eh.” Skinner kissed Dalish’s head again, nuzzling her silken hair. “With all that’s happened since then, no one remembers the Skinner of Val Royeaux, except for me.” Skinner hummed again, both relieved and wistful. “Anyway, I rambled around Southern Thedas for a few years, got into trouble then out of it, as best I could. Killed some people, for fun and for profit. Got recruited by the Chargers, eventually. The rest, as they say, is history.”

 

In the silence that followed, this time laden with _Dalish’s_ brooding, Skinner, unaccountably, started drifting off to sleep. She felt, quite suddenly and giddily, as light as air. . . .

 

“My name,” Dalish said quietly, but firmly, startling Skinner into blinking her way to wakefulness, once more, “is Finduala Alerion, for what it’s worth. When it’s just us— _just you and me_ —I’d . . . like to be that to you?” Shifting so she could look up at Skinner, Dalish smiled that hopeful, vulnerable smile. Skinner returned it uncertainly, just before Dalish moved in for a tender kiss that made Skinner’s insides think about aching again. “And you . . . you’ll be my _Star_. How does that sound?”

 

“I. . . .” Skinner huffed out a startled breath that felt as if it’d been twenty-plus years in coming. “That sounds . . . nice.”

 

Dalish’s smile warmed even more and she stole another sweet kiss, lingering at it with a contented sigh. “Excellent, darling! When this Breach-nonsense is over, we’ll take a Leave and find my clan. I’ll introduce you to my Keeper and my family—well, the Alerion-half of it, anyway . . . my father’s gone back to the Lavellans— _and_ , if you’re not averse. . . .” licking her lips anxiously, Dalish laughed. “Well. There’s a . . . ceremony. . . .”

 

“Isn’t there _always_ , with you Dalish elves?” Skinner’s tone was wry and fond, and—when Dalish said: _“Oi!”_ and pinched the spare curve of Skinner’s right breast—followed by a snorting laugh.

 

“Silly little chit,” Dalish muttered with fond exasperation, before rolling on top of Skinner, her eyes alight. “ _Marry me_ ,” she implored earnestly, when Skinner’s hands had settled on her ass once more. “Join my clan. Take my clan-name. Be with me in this life, and the next.”

 

Skinner’s eyes widened. Then she blinked. Then blinked again.

 

Then smirked, crooked and pleased.

 

“Fine,” she allowed, but with a caveat, as Dalish whooped and kissed her face all over. “Just _don’t_ expect me to get my face tattooed!”

 

“I wouldn’t _want_ you to, poppet,” Dalish agreed fervently, still kissing and nuzzling and sighing. “I quite _like_ this face without _any_ distractions.”

 

Laughing, Skinner rolled them over, kissing Dalish with a frenetic, ecstatic lack of coordination. It wasn’t long before Dalish’s giggles became breathless, desperate moans, and Skinner’s startled bemusement and edgy readiness for the coming battle—her near-certainty that they’d both be _very_ shortly dead, and facing the prospect of that still City and its empty _Throne_ . . . _together_ —were submerged in . . . _this_.

 

In the here and now.

 

**5**

 

“Okay, Ev’s got him yappin’—Dalish: you’re on!” Krem starts gesturing frantically.

 

The Dalish _archer_ focuses her gaze on the giant dragon skull in the small courtyard and dramatically, but gracefully, levels her . . . _bow_ . . . at it. The aiming-crystal at the tip soon glows the same crystalline-blue as her ethereal eyes.

 

The skull begins to—slowly—move.

 

From off to the side, Stitches and Grim watch its progress with more than a little horrified fascination. Rocky, meanwhile, is arguing with Krem in hissed whispers. The words _black powder_ and _should work_ are plainly audible, and Krem rolls his eyes skyward. Then, as always, in the direction of the Inquisitor, Evra Adaar. The Inquisitor is engaged in clearly stilted and nervous discussion with Bull, who is drinking and nodding patiently at her conversational gambits as he waits for Ambassador Pavus to be done with his duties for the day.

 

The timing is tight, but it’s probably the _best_ chance they’ll get.

 

“Ferelden politics are simply _fascinating_. . . !” the endearingly awkward Vashoth apostate exclaims brightly, forcing a terribly unbelievable laugh. “Did you _know_ —”

 

Krem rolls his eyes and smiles fondly, smittenly, at his wife for a few more moments, before turning back to the recalcitrant dragon skull with a rather intimidating scowl.

 

It’s moved less than three feet and already stalled.

 

Sighing, Krem nods once, tersely, at Rocky. “Right, then. We’ll try it your way,” he says, in a tone that implies he fully expects to regret that decision. Rocky’s face lights up and he hurries off to get his version of Qunari black powder which, disturbingly, is _never_ very far from its creator.

 

“Ten sovereigns say the Inquisitor gives the game away before Rocky even gets back,” Stitches mutters to Grim, holding out his hand. Grim accepts the bet with a firm handshake and an amused grunt.

 

Dalish, meanwhile, pauses in her efforts, wiping her brow and shaking her head, then glances—grinning and wry and _shining . . . in love_ —at _her_ _wife_ , who leans against one of Val Royeaux’s ubiquitous statues, smiling-smiling-smiling.

 

“Well!” the . . . _archer_ . . . exclaims, laughing and leaning on her _bow_ , the tip of which still sparks and crackles with arcane energies. “Ten sovereigns says _Rocky_ blasts the bloody thing _apart_ before he gets it into the tavern, lovey! What do you say to _that_ wager?”

 

Star “Skinner” Alerion snorts and chuckles, her mouth crooking into that old, but now rarely-used, smirk.

 

“A sucker’s bet, sweetheart,” she replies, waving a dismissive hand as Rocky returns with his black powder and a big, somewhat worrying grin. “No takers!”

 

END

**Author's Note:**

> Well? The verdict?
> 
> Thanks to MurderousLady for the push in this direction. Because another 'ship is _exactly_ what I need :-|
> 
> Also, HMU on [TUMBLR](http://beetle-ships-it-all.tumblr.com)!


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